Amnesty report condemns attacks on Israelis

Palestinian Authority officials differ on report

Nineteen people were killed in a June 18 terror attack on a bus in Jerusalem. The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (CNN) -- Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians are "crimes against humanity" for which "there can never be a justification," according to an Amnesty International report released Thursday.

In a statement released with the 44-page report, Amnesty International urged "the Palestinian Authority to arrest and bring to justice those who order, plan or carry out attacks on civilians.

"The Palestinian Authority and Israel have a duty to take measures to prevent attacks on civilians. Such measures must always be in accordance with international human rights standards."

The report said attacks on civilians, even in response to a military occupation or as part of a military struggle, cannot be justified.

"Whatever the cause for which people are fighting, there can never be a justification for direct attacks on civilians," it said.

It also noted that Amnesty International has repeatedly cited "violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by Israel in the occupied territories."

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The Palestinian Authority accepted the report, said information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, denying accounts that the authority, which has been calling for a halt in attacks on Israeli civilians, had rejected it.

Ahmed Abdul Rahman, the Palestinian Cabinet secretary-general, had earlier told the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, "All that is happening to Israeli citizens is a normal consequence for their occupation and rejection of Palestinian rights."

Ismail Abus Shanab, a spokesman for the radical Islamic Hamas group, called the report "completely biased."

Hamas has claimed responsibility for more suicide bombings than any other Palestinian group and has vowed to continue the terror attacks.

The report said, "The attacks by Palestinian armed groups are widespread, systematic and in pursuit of an explicit policy to attack civilians. They therefore constitute crimes against humanity under international law."

The attacks, said the report, may represent "war crimes" depending on the legal status of the groups involved in carrying them out.

The report said that Palestinian groups do not have the right to fight by "all means" necessary.

"Attacks on civilians are not permitted under any internationally recognized standard of law, whether they are committed in the context of a struggle against military occupation or any other context," the report said.

"Not only are they considered murder under general principles of law in every national legal system, they are contrary to fundamental principles of humanity which are reflected in international humanitarian law.

"In the manner in which they are being committed in Israel and the occupied territories they also amount to crimes against humanity," the report said.

The report was to have been hand delivered Thursday to Israeli President Moshe Katsav.